WHY I LOVE BOY BANDS

Because: I've got this thing about kicking shame right out. Or maybe it has something to do with gender—well, what doesn't? Truth be told, my gender identity might be boy band

if I were given the choice, which mostly I'm not. Why won't the world let me have five different faces? Let me be the individual and the group, all at once. Let me be every kind of boy imaginable.

Because: They manage to always belong to each other, however choreographed their creation. Love emerging from circumstance, not choice: in each other, they get a second shot

at the lottery of family. Sure, every family is full of opportunities to learn to hate yourself. But there are other possibilities too—soft places, where you find yourself held close to what you could become.

Because: Before I knew the meaning of words like transgender and heteropatriarchy, I knew every syllable of the Backstreet Boys' discography, was part of a contingent that could sure as hell show up in the streets; don't ever tell me

teenage girls can't change the world. I've seen them give up sleep and warmthfor what they believe in, assemble en masse in a scream that could shatter crystal glasses.

Because: They were queer before I was, or maybe they were the first time I knew how queer I could be, and what kind, and with whom. Boys in matching outfits, always one

with painted nails and another who could shoot hoops, two somewhere whispering a joke that sent them into giggles at a half-sentence. The middle school chorus:

You know they're gay, right?

I knew I needed to know that boys could love boys enough to give each other the last, best thank yous in the liner notes. I had to learn from somewhere how to demote God to the middle of the paragraph.

Because: Sometimes I need to believe that as long as there'll be music, they'll be coming back again. Isn't that all any of us really want? Something to rely on. To know they won't leave you alone in your changing body,

your small town world. For all those bouquets of promises to be kept. Especially the ones you made to yourself, clunky headphones on, that album on repeat again, singing to yourself, Don't wanna lose you now or ever again. And you didn't.